Global Design: Digital nomads in Bali can ditch offices for eco-city with designer homes, beach club

BALI – Two 13.7m-tall sculptures tower over the landscape. Part fairy tale, part Mad Max, South African multidisciplinary artist Daniel Popper’s Earth Sentinels keep a watchful eye over Nuanu, a new city in Bali designed for digital nomads. 

This blueprint for future living was drawn up during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Russian entrepreneur Sergey Solonin, who found himself in Bali at the start of 2020, thought about what a self-sustaining city could look like.

By March the same year, Nuanu Creative City (

nuanu.com

) was launched, with co-working spaces, a school and designer residences for sale. 

If Nevada’s hippie Burning Man event created a realtor arm, it probably would not be too dissimilar. Nuanu – the Balinese word for “in the process” – has been designed to attract those who would rather spend their time on a tropical isle from dawn till dusk, instead of in an office cubicle. 

From cows to eco-city

Nuanu, which covers 44ha of land, is striking and ambitious. The former cattle-grazing land is now a mini metropolis of architectural bamboo domes, shimmering mirror-clad buildings and villas in the style of hobbit homes in The Lord Of The Rings series (2001 to 2003). 

Built on the coast of Tabanan in Bali, Nuanu is a 30-minute drive from digital nomad hot spot Canggu, and close to the 16th-century temple Tanah Lot.

The Nuanu team has pledged to leave two-thirds of the landscape to nature. “We try to build around trees or relocate them,” says Nuanu chief executive Lev Kroll, a Russian who lives in Bali.  

This “15-minute city” – where residents will be able to reach most places via a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride – is now being used by holidaymakers.

But when Nuanu, where cars are banned, starts to open its residences in the fourth quarter of 2025, it will become a home. Digital nomads and investors from Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia were among the first to purchase properties. 

City buildings, such as a school and restaurants, can already be seen when I visit in November 2024. A museum will join them in 2026. But alongside these familiar features is a beach club and festival ground.

Yet, even the schools and businesses are anything but typical. 

The ProEd Global School, one of Nuanu’s first properties to open, looks like an oversized safari camp. Children from nursery age to Year 10 – equivalent to Secondary 4 in Singapore – can take lessons in a performance amphitheatre, science laboratory and music room while parents wait for them in on-site cafe Jungle Toppings.

Near the school is Lumeira social-wellness complex, which features ochre-coloured domes that look plucked from a Star Wars film set. A short ride from there is Magic Garden, where butterflies are bred to pollinate plants and replenish the grounds. 

While you will not find supermarkets, you will find new hotels. The boutique hotel Oshom can be found wrapped around trees in the mangroves. 

But the real-estate projects, priced from US$150,000 (S$193,000), are what will turn Nuanu into a community. Developments include Ecoverse, a group of 34 apartments and 16 town houses that use EcoCrete bricks made from coal waste and photovoltaic power. It also features a co-working space, gourmet restaurant and 25m pool. 

The most recent project, The Pavilions, is what developers call Bali’s first wellness residence. The villas come with a private wellness centre called The Core, which includes a meditation area, yoga studio and hydrotherapy pools. 

German architect Alexis Dornier was behind the design for The Residences, which were priced from US$500,000 and sold out in one day in June 2024.

The villas are equipped with solar power, osmosis water filters and passive cooling. “Working with volcanic stone and handmade bricks gave us the opportunity to anchor the project in Bali without falling into cliches,” says Mr Dornier.

Mr Kroll says making the place feel like a community for residents comes down to the planning. The homes are set on the edge of Nuanu and will have the appeal of any upscale enclave. When the residents are not using their homes, Nuanu will help them rent these out to other digital nomads.

There are expected to be a few thousand residents making the array of apartments, town houses and villas their base.

Their lives will be helped by Nuanu’s version of Siri, called Aurora, which will act as their AI concierge. It can seamlessly sync with residents’ schedules, so when they want to leave the house, an electric buggy will arrive at their door.

Cosmoplitan shops and art

Nuanu has an entrepreneurial spirit. Dotted around the grounds are a string of businesses as varied as a hydroponic farm and a design studio that sells office chairs made with recycled plastic. 

With so many businesses operating within the city, it could become a melee of designs, but Nuanu has an investment in each business to create some consistency. Each enterprise also has to give 5 per cent of its revenue to a social fund which provides Tabanan locals with free education and healthcare.  

As Nuanu is aimed at digital nomads, business owners come from all over the globe. While the majority of the city’s 700 staff are from Indonesia, it has led people to question why more Indonesians are not involved. Comments have also been made online about the amount of Russian investments.

Many of the commissioned artists are also international. The sculptural bamboo THK Tower is designed by French architect Arthur Mamou-Mani and Balinese bamboo artisan I Made Wirahadi Purnawan, and the museum focuses on the work of Japanese artist Eugene Kangawa. 

Mr Kroll says: “We are not Indonesians, so that’s not something we can bring to the table. What we can do is amplify what Bali has.”

In the light of this, his team brings international names and Indonesian artists to Nuanu, so they have a place to meet.

While many will probably live in their swimwear and dine at the beach clubs, for supermarkets and clothing, residents will need to leave the city.

Similar projects aimed at expatriates have gone by the wayside, but Mr Kroll says Nuanu’s slower pace of development should be the key to its success. “There was a culture for developers to do things quickly, but that’s not right for us, coming from a more corporate background,” he adds. 

Australian journalist and YouTuber Chris Stead spends a lot of his time on the road and visited Nuanu with his family. “As beautiful as it is, I wouldn’t live there in its current form,” he says. “It’s quite remote and isolated from much of the infrastructure and affordable necessities I’d need for my young family.”

Mr Stead, who created a YouTube video about Nuanu, also believes it has some work to do in turning it into a city. “There’s no overarching authority that binds Nuanu into feeling like a singular place. It feels like a collection of third-party businesses each trying to lure customer dollars,” he adds.

Luxury lifestyle influencer Angelina Shashkina, who moved from Bangkok to Bali in February 2023, is taken with the fact that Nuanu keeps her away from Bali’s busy roads. “Nuanu is one of the rare places in Bali where you can actually walk everywhere,” she says. 

But she adds that to turn it into her home, she would need more infrastructure. “Adding more everyday conveniences and services would make it even more comfortable and practical for long-term living.”  

Mr Kroll says that to make it a community, Nuanu needs people. But as its first art fair Art & Bali held earlier in September drew 10,000 visitors, that does not look as if it will be a problem.